Nicola Murray is flustered. She’s trying not to look it, but she is. The day before we meet, she tweeted a heartfelt 140-character tribute to Phillip Schofield, responding to reports on the social-networking site that he had died on a ferry. “RIP the irreplaceable Philip Schofield,” Murray eulogised, “From Going Live to This Morning - a flawless entertainer. My thoughts go out to his family :’( ”. The only problem? Schofield was alive. In fact, he was live on ITV at the time. Murray had been fooled by a Twitter death hoax. Taking a large gulp from what appears to be a pint of takeaway cappuccino, she now tries her best to shrug it off. “Look, these things happen. I phoned Phil last night, we had a very civil, quite fun chat. I’m sending him a case of Bordeaux wine. According to Wikipedia he collects it. Though perhaps I shouldn’t trust that either,” she says, stifling an eyelid spasm with her hand.

In the 500 days since she controversially won the Opposition leadership contest, the question marks over her competence have not disappeared; if anything, they have metastasised. The Guardian’s cartoonist has taken to portraying her as “The Iron Deficient Lady”, lampooning her anaemic weekly performances at Prime Minister’s Questions. The red tops call her “Murray Mint”, the implication being not that she’s refreshing, rather that she “sucks”. And after a litany of troublesome “gates” (among them “Wiki”-gate, “Prick”-gate and “Loose Women”-gate), Murray has effectively become Private Eye’s cover girl.

On top of all this are the presentation problems, the misjudged photo spreads and “Moustache Murray” headlines. When Scotland’s premier satirist Frankie Boyle tweeted a joke about Murray’s alleged “lip whiskers”, he even managed to get the hash-tag “tash-hag” trending worldwide.

I ask Murray how she would like to be perceived by others. “As someone that doesn’t take herself too seriously but does take the job seriously,” she says. “A bit like Usain Bolt, really. I only wish I had his legs!” In reality, the perception is that she lacks ideas – or at least “non-terrible ideas”, as one elderly former special adviser to Murray told me. “Her gut reactions never produce anything more substantial than political flatulence.”

The Prime Minister seems to have struck political gold with Murray – providing, as she does, a distraction from his coalition’s own considerable deficiencies. Back in May, just after Murray’s cataclysmic One Show appearance alongside Paul McCartney, the PM famously called Murray and her party an “Eterna-blunder”. The name has stuck. Conversely, Murray’s own attempt at phrasemaking – she called the Government a “Magna Coal-amity” – fell flat. Murray’s fiery spin doctor, Malcolm “Scotch Bonnet” Tucker (who unfortunately denied us an on-the-record interview for this article), has certainly had his work cut out.

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I wonder what does Murray actually stand for. She has spoken in the past about a “Real-volution”. “Absolutely. I care about ordinary, real people. Whatever people are talking about in ordinary places, places like… Dunstable, that’s what the Government should be talking about. But they’re not. The PM probably hasn’t even been to Dunstable. I have. Twice. And both times, I listened to the Dunstablians and spoke to them straightforwardly. We need to re-relevantise politics, to speak in simple terms.” “Re-relevantise?” I ask. “Sorry. I mean, make politics relevant again.”

So what would a Nicola Murray Premiership actually look like? “I don’t know much about football, I’m afraid.” She cracks a smile; she’s joking. “But seriously, I’ve always wanted to be Prime Minister. Yes, there are tough decisions to be made, but I’ve always loved making tough decisions. When I was young I wanted to be a vet.”

I mention an online campaign called “Hail Murray” which aims to keep her as party leader for ever. “Oh, that’s really lovely…” I interject to point out that the campaign is not run by her own party members, but by a group of coalition supporters. I explain that it is called “Hail Murray” not because they’re praising her, but because, with her as leader, the Opposition hasn’t got a prayer of getting into power. Murray nods grimly, opens her mouth, but says nothing.

Within her own party, opinions seem mixed. A source close to her office said: “The million dollar ‑‑‑‑ing question is ‘Why?’ As in: ‘Why is she party leader? Why was she born? Why won’t she just die? Why? Why? Why?’ Christ, there are more ‘whys’ than in Lynyrd ‑‑‑‑ing Skynyrd.”

But despite reports of tensions, the Shadow Cabinet appears to be in full support. Ben Swain, nicknamed “The Blink Panther” after several high-profile performances of twitchy political slapstick, says he’s “part of the Nicola Murray fan club, though, obviously, in reality, no such club actually exists”. He enthuses: “She’s a real one-off. After she goes, I don’t think we’ll ever again see anyone like Nicola Murray in top-level British politics.”

Her deputy, Dan Miller, is also a devotee. “Nicola’s a rare thing in politics: a real person. The way she acts, the way she thinks; it’s almost as if she isn’t a career politician at all.”

My time with Murray is almost up. I ask her about the future. Does she feel she has the support to last until the next election? “Oh yes, absolutely, very much so, definitely. If I didn’t, I don’t know what I’d do. I imagine I’d probably find it very difficult to get up in the morning.” An assistant arrives with another gargantuan cappuccino. Nicola Murray takes a large, hurried gulp. It becomes apparent that she has burnt her tongue.

Sean Gray is one of the writers of The Thick of It, which returns on BBC Two on Saturday 8 September at 9.45pm